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Calling the cows.

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I was looking through my draft posts this morning and realized that I'd written this on Dec. 29 but never posted it.

I usually have two or three draft posts going - my month end post where I post pictures I love each week, and post on the last day of the month and then usually another post I'm working on but isn't "just right" yet.

So even though we're smack dab in the middle of calving, I'm posting this. We have a three day weekend coming up, and it is my full intention to get pictures of these heifers and their new babies! But for today - I'll leave you with a few pictures of the {Expectant Mothers}.

And Cookie.I think I'm mostly posting this post late because of Cookie. He's become the ranch mascot here at Double M. :)

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We're getting closer to calving, so the guys have started to split the feedings for the bred heifers. Eventually, they'll get to just feeding them once a day, in the evening but it takes a bit to get them transitioned to that.....{Hangry} applies to cattle too. :) So for now, the bred heifers get fed 1/2 of a feeding in the morning, and then we turn them into the second 1/2 in the late afternoon.

I hadn't moved the bred heifers by myself yet this year, and I wasn't sure they'd follow me. The AI pasture is maybe a half mile long, and I was just in a pickup so I knew that there wasn't a chance that I could "push" them with the pickup.

So I started calling.

"C'MMMMOOOOONNNNN GIRLS!"

"MMMMMMMmmmmm BOOOOOSSSSSS!"

That, and a few honks of the horn - and all of the heifers came running.

I shouldn't have worried.

They're not stupid - and they knew well enough that if they follow a pickup or truck, feed is usually involved at the end. :)

Cookie - our lead steer - was in the lead and showing the heifers the way!

Cookie was born in the Fall of 2012 to Creamy, a Jersey we bought from Terry & Anna that had been bred to one of their Corriente bulls. He's kind of become the Double M mascot, and he always gets put in groups of cattle who need to learn the ropes. He looooves people, and if you stand at a gate and call his name - "Coooookkkkkiiiiee!" - he'll come running, and then the rest of the group follows him.

His horns are getting so big!

All I had to do was stand at the gate, and call him - and he went right through.

The rest of the heifers weren't far behind, and they were excited to get to go to the hay we had laying out for them from the morning.

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Clint & Wade bought a small set of Hoodoo bred Charolais heifers this summer, The fall's went to Wade & Cara in Nevada, and the spring's came to us here in Oregon. We have some older cows who are 12-14 years old and have reached their prime and as much as we hate to cull them due to age, Clint figured we'd better have a plan in place for when they needed to go to town. We picked the heifers up right before we left for NFR, so Clint just branded them and turned them out with the rest of the bred heifers last week.

It's fun to see a few white ones in a sea of black. :)

They're a little smaller than we'd probably like them to be, but hopefully they'll catch up and calve right along with the rest of the group here.

They're learning the ropes here at Double M, just like the rest of the heifers.

Winter is a prime time to teach the heifers to come when they're called, and I was glad that they came as well as they did when I called them.

I bet they were happy too.....when they all went through the gate, found the hay, and put their heads down to eat.

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty & well preserved body; but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a ride!". - Anonymous

You can't have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic. - Unknown

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. - Arthur Ashe

Happiness is the reward we get for living to see the highest right we know. - Richard Bach

Be sure you put your feet in the right place; then stand firm - Abraham Lincoln